Thursday: House votes for Benghazi investigation, Senate votes on noms

The much-anticipated House vote to create a select committee to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, will dominate Thursday.

Under the resolution, the committee would have seven Republicans and five Democrats. It would also be authorized to issue subpoenas, and would issue a report on its findings.

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Democrats have still not decided if they will participate in the panel.

The vote to create the panel is likely to be along party lines.

Also Thursday, the House will take up a measure to extend the research and development tax credit. The tax credit, which expired at the end of last year, is championed by the business community. It would cost $155 billion over the next decade with no offset.

Democrats have criticized the GOP for extending the tax credit with no pay-for while refusing to consider doing the same for unemployment insurance. But Republicans pointed out that the Senate Finance Committee package to extend more than 50 tax breaks, including the research and development credit, does not have an offset either.

The Senate starts at 9:30 a.m. and will vote on executive and judicial nominations later Thursday.

At 11:15 a.m. the Senate will vote to end debate on the nominations of Indira Talwani to be a U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts, James Peterson to be a U.S. District Judge for western Wisconsin and Nancy Rosenstengel to be a U.S. District Judge for southern Illinois.

Confirmation of all three is expected at 1:45 p.m. After the confirmation vote of Rosenstengel, the Senate will vote to end debate on the nomination of Robin Rosenbaum to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit and final confirmation of Theodore Mitchell to be Under Secretary of Education.

Around noon, the Senate is expected to voice-vote confirm Pamela Hamamoto to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations in Geneva.